Archives for February 2015

Frustrated Incorporated

February 26, 2015 By franco Leave a Comment

There is no hiding it when I get on the struggle bus. And I am on the struggle bus. The frustration has completely set in and the candy aisle in Wawa is harder and harder to resist. Of course they put the potato chips at the end of the candy aisle now so it’s like 1 stop shop.

Am I eating too much? Chances are even with counting macros, I am not eating enough. I haven’t lost any weight since October yet my energy level is higher than ever. So what gives? I don’t know. Counting Macros and eating within them might not be the thing for me. I can hit the protein and the fat… get close to the fiber but getting the Carbs to where they need to be without going crazy with junk is NOT easy whatsoever. I have been saying it here for weeks that I need help and I found a nutritionist at the NE Aquatic and Racquet Club that takes my insurance and is supposed to be very good. So I have an appointment with her tomorrow. Maybe she can help me break through this plateau. At 328lbs. I’d like to be under 300 for memorial day. I don’t think it’s an unrealistic goal and I’d do what she said to get there. Once I know what I am doing there, I’ll tell you more.

So weight wise and mood wise you pretty much know where I stand I even got this text from the trainer that is doing a 45 day challenge that I signed up for.

“You lost weight but your inches and body fat stayed about the same”

So if that didn’t drive a nail into the emotional coffin today. I fought a cold for most of this week. And Sunday I felt so crappy that I decided that since I wasn’t going to hit my fuel goal that I was taking the Nike Fuelband off after 413 straight days of hitting my goal. I am now a Pebble Watch wearing MoFo. It sucked on Sunday. I was bumming about it. But today I feel revealed. Giving your body a rest day didn’t happen when you had to get your fuel points. I know that my walks aren’t burning many calories anymore. It doesn’t get my heart rate up like it used to. But it’s a routine for me. It’s an hour I spend moving rather than sitting in my recliner talking to you on here (lol). So after a few days. I am glad I took the Fuel band off. I can always put it on and start over if I start slacking. But I don’t think I am going to.

So I am going to stop there with the beating myself up because honestly, I am stronger than that. I’ll figure this out. I am not giving up.

Let’s talk about a couple good things then.

Strength training is going well. Tonight is the final night of the first month. I have seen gains. I have gone from a 135 Squat to a 200lb one. Tonight I’d like to go 225. We shall see. That’s roughly 75% of my body weight and I should be able to pull at least 1 nice clean, good formed one.

Okay. I did a soft launch of my new website, Phillyfun.com – It’s a jump site to all thing Franco! Check it out. I have been doing a little re-branding lately and love it. I am sure it’s a stronger confidence and a new fire that’s inside me to succeed even more.

I have to go. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Thanks for reading. I am here if you need me. Keep pushing. Keep moving forward. Keep an eye out on my twitter. I’ll post some stuff tomorrow after my doctors appointment.

Franco

Thinking Out Loud

February 18, 2015 By franco Leave a Comment

I am NOT the father. Ask Maury. He’ll tell you.

Hey everybody it’s Tuesday, I am out walking I speak this into my phone. There’s about 4 inches of snow on the ground outside, after dropping off the CEO of team Franco at work, watching people slide all over the place driving, I decided it was too far to try to get to Planet Fitness to get my cardio in. So here I am walking in Franklin Mills, pretty much where all my fitness started. I want to try and get 4 miles done today, I usually do two and run to Boot Camp, but I think when I am done one round I might just me do another and get it done. My legs feel like mush. 4 miles. BOOM!

Wednesday

Things have been very hard lately. Start looking on paper and you see that you’ve been the same weight since October no matter how your body has changed it will start playing with your head. I am not going crazy, but I need to get myself in check. I was much more strict with myself this time last year. And this week I somehow managed to hit my macros a few days and gain a pound. Christ people lose their shit after not losing after a few days, doing what I’m doing. And I gained weight.

So what do I do? I look back on my logs. See what I’ve eaten and fix it. I can’t exercise any more than I already am. I get cardio in at least 2x’s a week. I lift/bootcamp at least 5 times a week. Some days I do 2 classes… Today if I feel up to it I am going to be doing 3. So it has to be something I tackle with food. It has to be. And again I don’t have the answers. I have been trying to find someone who has the answers. I am kinda lost. But you just have to keep moving forward. I threw out all my 3x tshirts, got all new underwear (Sexy), socks, my bigger pants are all gone. So I am not letting myself slide into a depression that will ultimately undo all my hard work. I have been then before. I have done that before. It’s how we got here.

In 2006 my brother Tony was very Emo! He has never likes top 40 music but loves music. He prides himself on liking things before everyone else does. By the time the rest of us catch up, he’s on to the next soon to be great band. He’s not so Emo anymore. But during that period he introduced me to a non-profit called To Write Love on Her Arms.

To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

I loved their message and I really loved their clothing. My favorite was one that said LOVE MOVEMENT. So I bought more of them for myself last week for my birthday. I got a few t-shirts and a hoodie that said LOVE across it. I love it and I actually looked pretty good in it. So when the voices creep up on me that the Mountain Dew and Cheetos miss me, that its just much easier to sit home, playing online, watching tv and eating whatever I want…. I will fight that depression, that dark cloud… I will call on love. I will fight through it. Because my story is important. YOUR story is important. Nothing good for you is easy. It comes with struggle, doubt, self abuse sometimes mentally and physically. I don’t meant it in a bad way but I do feel like I abuse myself sometimes. My body hurts. My brain hurts. Why did I eat that? Why do I wait for everyone to go to sleep and find myself eating a peice of bread with butter on it. I was so careful all day long and then I can’t help myself. There is ice cream in the freezer, but I don’t grab that. I crave the bread and butter. So you fight yourself. Guess what. In the end, the winner will be you.

I am 29 pounds from 300. Goal #1 is 311. After that, we’ll see about those 11 pounds. I am hoping to be there by May 1st now. I think it’s fair. It’s healthy and it’s a reasonable goal. Now it’s time to plan.

RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS!

I just wanted to give a shout out to a guy, an Instagram friend that I don’t know. I’ve never met him. His name is Robert Sargent. He saw me post on IG that I wasn’t going to be able to get to the gym in the snow to get my cardio in and sent me a pass to LA Fitness. Didn’t try to sell me. If related to my friends Stress and Sev and just showed me kindness. I have wanted to get an LA membership but with everything else I spend money on fitness wise the $30 a month is hard to scratch up let alone the $100 down. I keep thinking sitting in the sauna once or twice a week would be good. I have till March 4th to use it so I am going to have to stop in at least. He’s at the Bala Cynwood LA so if you are out that way. Say hello. If you want a gym membership. That’s the gym. He’s got a big heart. He didn’t have to be nice to me. That’s a big deal to me.

So with that keep your heart wild. I’ll try and practice what I preach and keep moving forward.

Song Without A Chorus

February 11, 2015 By franco Leave a Comment

This blog post was going to be titled how I spent my birthday weekend but that has come and gone. Some people put a lot of thought into me, sound surprised me and came out of nowhere. And some let me down as usual. Sometimes many things are expected of me, but when it comes time for that same courtesy to be shown to me it fails. But in the end, you live and you learn, just like anything else, I will reset the way I handle events of those around me when it comes time for theirs. If there is any birthday reflection that I can make at 44 years old, is that no matter how I treat other people, no matter what I do for other people, in the end I cannot hold them to the same standard as I am held. If you can convince yourself to have no expectations, you’ll never get letdown. Sometimes a card with a few words will go a long way. In the end, it was a very enjoyable weekend. Boot camps, Lasagna, Ice cream, Band, Photoshoots.

My show this weekend was off the hook, so many people from the gym came to see me play that I did not even get to say hello to many of them, I am in one photo from the evening and I pretty much look like satan. But what an awesome mix of people from across my life.

When I started going to Dan Campos fitness last March I would have never in a million years have foreseen the showering of good people that would come into my life. I am there almost every day, and usually surrounded by some very good people. Yes there are some narcissistic fuckers and they will try to drag you down into their murk, talk about you behind your back, generally do what they have to do to get what they want. Use you up and spit you out. But that’s life too. And even with that, I’m starting to see that I get out of life what I put into it. The more I leave my living room, the more I try things, the more success and happiness I seem to be having. I need to let myself be happy more. I am anxious. I have anxiety over things that I really can’t change.

The flex eating isn’t really going all that well. I definitely don’t see weight pouring off of me like people like to say, maybe that is for skinny people. I know you are supposed to be able to eat those macros at anytime of the day as long as you hit them but. I feel like I am shoveling a lot of them in before I go to bed because I was not hungry throughout this day. I am going to keep at it. Something has to give. I really, really want a freaking coach who knows about bad fat. One who can measure me, working out what my body needs. No pills. No junk. Even if I had the money. I don’t know where to start and I am not just giving someone $100 bucks on the internet for a plan. They don’t know me. I am sure they send the same damn plan to everyone.

I have been trying to do more cardio. Sometimes I think putting your weight in the machine at planet fitness is the one thing that keeps me going there. Seeing the numbers, big, red blowing up in your face is also soul crushing. I was trying to walk on the arc trainer yesterday, and seemed like it was taking forever to get to 326. Is the girl running on the machine behind me watching? Is there a camera above me waiting to see what I weigh? Who will win the bet? I bet it’s the janitor. Does that motherfucker even speak English?

They can’t always be super cheery blog posts people. This isn’t an easy journey. It is brutal on your body. It is brutal on your heart. The rewards are more than money can buy. But there is a price that gets paid for it like everything else. But I will end on a positive.

Not quite box jumps but I've coma long way. — Not quite box jumps but I’ve coma long way.

I am putting in work at strength training. I squatted 165 yesterday. I got lower than I ever have before too. I bench pressed 115 for 10 reps too. So they aren’t meat head numbers but I am not a meat head. Today I walked up the box with no help. No walking stick. Just me! So there is that.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Time and Time Again…

February 5, 2015 By franco Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe that over a year has passed since I started writing to you. I am not even sure who “you” is. Up until recently, I had almost no idea that more than a handful of people read this. But either way here I am.

It is February 4, the gyms are already somewhat back to normal. And I am still working on 2014’s goals and just as far away from them as I was at the end of the year. More food, more cardio, more weightlifting, sometimes absolutely bone crushing on my super ego. I am a musician for gods sake, lead singer, of course I have a super ego.

You’re too fat. No I will come and see your band play. We can’t book that band, that’s the band with the fat guy in it. Drive all the way to Ocean City Maryland for a band showcase on a crappy ass rainy Sunday night to play for free, every other band gets summer dates there except mine because basically he didn’t like the girl and I was too fat. His patrons aren’t going to want to see that.

You know what? Fuck you! I have beaten every single odd that there is for a guy like me. I got the dream, I got the girl, I don’t have a house with a white picket fence, but I have a little shore house, and I have played on every stage that I really wanted to over the years and have been successful at it.

What happened to the guy who didn’t want to book the band in Ocean City Maryland? Four years later after we set the New Jersey shore on fire he wanted us very badly. And I could’ve been a vengeful prick and said no, try to hold out for more money which we would’ve never gotten. But just like anything else in my life, I made the decision for the better good. I took the band to Ocean City Maryland, and for years and years was one of the top drawing bands at that establishment and over 14 years later – still am. And while we are still there, that manager is long gone.

So why am I telling you all this? It’s to show you that no matter what I do not give up when I want something. Maybe it will show you how strong I am, maybe it will remind me how strong I am when I have to reread this later to edit it.

I decided to try something called flexible eating. It is definitely more of a lifestyle, than it is a diet plan. It is a program my trainer Dan Campos has been working for the last couple years. You can google IIFYM of you want to learn more. It stands for If It Fit’s Your Marcos. It’s a program that targets specific macro nutrients for your body. So for my weight, height, age and body fat I have to hit a certain amount of protein, carbs, fat and fiber. And let me tell you IT IS HARD!!!! You can get it in any time of the day but I find myself not being hungry and then shoving different things in my mouth at 8pm to get there or making a mega smoothie. If you see me eating a bag of chips or something you haven’t in a while. Mind your own damn business. I haven’t fallen off the wagon. I just have to hit my macros.

It’s a learning curve. I am at 327 today. Sitting in the same spot for the past few weeks. Still full of hope. Still working hard. Still heading to the gym after I post this.

Since I started this journey a little over a year ago I’ve had one song on repeat… @bleachersmusic – I Wanna Get Better. It has inspired me, pushed me and some days it has even saved me from myself. The writing is actually my little brothers… the vitals represent the ups and downs of life…. While we were blasting this in we gave my Bigg Romeo 15 year tattoo a little bump in color and life.

My birthday is Sunday. I won’t be at my goal even still. I wanna get better.

Keeping the faith,

Franco